


What He Sees in Them

by Ysabetwordsmith



Category: Original Work
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Gen, Isolation, Mildly Dubious Consent, One-way relationship, Psychic Abilities, Souls, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabetwordsmith/pseuds/Ysabetwordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man is not interested in people's bodies, but in the souls that lie within them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What He Sees in Them

**Author's Note:**

> This poem was written for the [Asexy Valentines Fest](http://asexual-fandom.dreamwidth.org/54675.html). It also fills the "voyeurism" box on [my card](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/6873985.html) for the Dark Fantasy Bingo fest.
> 
> Dubious consent/nonconsent: the protagonist sees people's souls whether they want him to or not, and whether he wants to or not.

He likes to look at people's souls.

He holds no interest in their bodies,  
the soft folds or hard slabs of flesh,  
the clefts and protrusions  
that others value so highly.

No, he likes to walk behind them  
and read the life-list of things to do  
in the butt pocket of people's spirits,  
likes to look over their shoulders  
to see glimpses of the future to come.

Some of them are beautiful.  
Some of them are ugly.  
Most are in between, a mix  
of shadows and light like   
the leaf-dapples on a forest floor.

To him, it is as if they are naked,  
although they do not know it.

Everything they are is there for him to see,  
and he loves them a little for it,  
each of them and all of them,  
although he has never fallen in love  
with an individual.

Perhaps someday that will happen,  
or then again, perhaps it will not.  
He is open to both possibilities.

He slips through the city like a ghost.

Few people remark on his passing,  
for he is an ordinary-looking man  
with a forgettable face and   
shifting hazel eyes and  
hair-colored curls.

He watches them all  
when they are waking or sleeping,  
walking to work or making love,  
because he cannot close his inner eyes  
and walls do not block the shape of spirits.

He gazes into people's souls  
and nobody ever looks back,  
but he has not given up hope  
that someday, somebody will

really _see him_.


End file.
